Elliot Ackerman - Dark at the Crossing

“He just wanted to drink,” said Haris.

“You know that’s not true,” said Daphne. She handed him the mug she’d prepared. Together they drank, and her gesture brought meaning to Jim’s.

“The following afternoon,” said Haris, “I snuck off to the far corner of the terp ghetto, out where we kept the Dumpsters. I called Kareem Tamad. I told him his uncle should get out of town for the week. I expected him to thank me, but he just said, ‘Okay,’ and hung up. Didn’t he realize the risk I ran telling him this? I wanted some acknowledgment — I’d chosen the right course. But then, like a twisting in my guts, I knew I hadn’t made the call for Kareem’s sake. I could care less about him or his uncle. As I stood there by the Dumpsters, it became about Jim. I felt certain my friend was about to do something immoral, something he’d regret. He couldn’t stop himself, so I’d stop him.

“Just before midnight, we strapped on our body armor and climbed into our five Humvees. Up and down our convoy the guys in Triple Nickel checked their radios and guns. I sat peacefully in my seat behind Jim. By warning Kareem, I’d prevented my friend from making a great mistake. Confident in my decision, and knowing we drove to an empty house, I fell asleep.”

Haris’s voice trailed off. Daphne’s eyes rested on him, her expression poised with pity, as if she knew what came next. Before she could take his palm or touch his shoulder, Haris stood from the sofa bed. He took her empty mug and his and stepped into the kitchen. He removed the saucepan from the hot plate. He turned on the faucet, which spat warm, then scalding, water. Scrubbing their few dishes, Haris spoke, his hands nearly burning in the full basin:

“It wasn’t the blast that woke me. It was Jim. From the front seat, he reached back, shaking my leg. ‘Rise and shine, Abadi.’ Beneath his helmet and night-vision goggles, I could see the white flash of his smile. ‘Two minutes out,’ he said. ‘You seem nice and relaxed, bud.’ He didn’t turn around. As I remember it, the flash of his smile just expanded, growing and growing, until it swallowed him like darkness.”

Haris grew silent. The sink’s basin steamed. His forehead sweated, a few drips mixing with the dishwater. “Jim lost both his legs above the knee. I spent about six weeks convalescing with a broken arm and concussion. A few months later, once I’d settled in Michigan, Jim began to email me, asking if I’d come see him in the hospital. He told me to remember our deal — he’d wanted to know how I wound up. I never mustered the nerve to visit. Then his condition deteriorated quickly. When he lost his legs in the blast, soil mixed with his wounds. Fungus from the soil bred infection. When the doctors made their amputations, they couldn’t see this fungus. The infected tissue looked healthy, but slowly it spread. They cut more and more of him until it spread to places that couldn’t be cut. In the end the blast didn’t kill him, the soil did.”

Daphne bolted the front door and moved toward Haris. Standing alongside him, she leaned her back against the sink and propped her arms on the basin’s edge, bent at the elbows, pinched at her broken shoulders. Just as Haris turned toward her, she clumsily reached for him. Her hand pressed against his lowest rib. He glanced at her delicate fingers. He pulled his own from the sink. They’d turned red and a bit numb in the scalding water. For a moment neither moved, each held by the inches of stillness between them. Then they kissed, pressing their tongues into each other’s mouths. They pulled away together, neither having a taste for it. Instead, they went for each other’s belts, tugging and unfastening, no thought given to anything except speed.

His numb hands fell on her breasts, hips, between her legs. He felt so little, he was pretty sure she felt the same. She turned around, just as he spun behind her. He pushed against her, just as she pressed against him. She guided him as he found his way. They gasped, she clutching back, hooking her arm behind his head, he easing his weight on top of her. It was only moments, but their movements matched. Then his movements became fierce, outpacing hers as he neared the end. He knocked her grip from the basin’s edge, plunging her hands up to the elbows in the scalding water. Unable to straighten herself beneath his weight, she cursed. He heard her but didn’t stop.

He stumbled off of her, turning away, tucking his shirt in. She leaned her elbows on the sink, lifting her wet hands. They stood in the small kitchen, facing each other, weighing the impulse they had just fulfilled. Haris reached into the sink, pulling the drain plug. “I’m sorry,” he muttered while grasping for a towel to dry the remaining dishes.

Daphne stepped toward him, taking him by the wrists. She held his red, numb hands in hers, which were now the same. She ran cold water from the faucet, squeezed a bit of soap in his palms, and made him wash them. “It will help,” she said. And washing his hands in the cold water, she washed her own. “It was the boy,” she added. “Kareem Tamad — the baby monitor as a calling card, showing you his uncle’s house so he’d know you were coming — he was the bomber.”

“And I paid for being so blind,” answered Haris. “My solution and my problem were the same. Kareem disappeared after that night. Who knows, he might be fighting across the border now. I doubt he’s found much peace at home. As for me, living in the States, supporting my sister, it all proved empty. Jim was right — I needed a purpose. So I came here.”

Daphne unlocked the door’s dead bolt and returned to the living room, flicking off the apartment’s few lights. Haris stepped to the dresser, to where Amir had given him a blanket the night before. He spread it across the sofa bed.

“You don’t need to do that,” said Daphne. “Amir will make up the bed for himself.”

Haris looked back at her, confused.

“He’s out working, or at Marty’s,” she continued. “I don’t expect him until late. The light in my room bothers him. You won’t mind, will you?” As if fearful of Haris’s answer, she disappeared through the bedroom door, leaving it open just a crack.

Haris remained balanced on the side of the sofa bed, staring at his stocking feet. He wiggled his toes, wanting to feel some physical control over himself. What they had done in the kitchen, the painful, hasty lovemaking, it felt insignificant. Their impulses had intersected. It meant nothing more. What Daphne now offered required deliberation. To join her in the light of her room was to do something for her. Anxiety stirred in Haris, settling into his body. A familiar feeling. It reminded him of the morning he’d left for Detroit Metro Airport, the note he’d placed for Samia on the accent table, the last line he’d written.

Could still be true, he thought.

He stopped moving his toes.

He stepped in profile through the cracked-open door. Daphne lay on her side, eyes shut, forehead slightly knotted — still awake. A heavy duvet ensconced her shoulders. Her clothes rested in a folded pile on the floor, surrounded by her journals. Haris took his sweater and T-shirt off. He folded them, making a pile next to hers, and climbed into the bed. Beneath the duvet, Daphne’s naked body radiated nervous heat. Haris placed his palm between her pinched shoulders. Her skin felt like warm stone. He spread his fingers to the scars on her back, the ones he had glanced before. He traced them between his thumb and index finger, smoothing them like seams. Her body tensed as she pressed her face into the pillow. With all her pain, and without the room’s darkness to hide it, Haris felt defeated. He could have her impulses but nothing deliberate. He turned away, finding his space on the opposite side of the bed. Facing him on the end table was Amir’s book: Responsible Conduct of Research by Dr. Adil E. Shamoo. Amir was lucky, thought Haris. With his revolution hijacked, his home destroyed, his daughter gone, he had managed to contain himself with just one book, as opposed to Daphne’s explosion of journals. Jim would’ve understood Amir, thought Haris. They both could reduce their lives to a single thing. That he couldn’t manage the same embittered him. As Haris lay in the bed, Kareem’s and Saied’s betrayals of him, and his own betrayal of Jim, twisted in his guts, right where his friend once told him his soul resided.